Defining Moments
by Sartori
Summary: *Updated some chapters* This is what would have happened, had Tidus and Yuna accepted their fates. (R-Rating is for later chapters)
1. The Beginning

IMPORTANT NOTE: Major spoilers for those who have not met up with YUNALESCA. And these are Square's characters, I don't own them. Enjoy  
  
This story begins after Tidus has been informed by Yunalesca of what they have to do to obtain the Final Aeon. Remember there are story spoilers for those who haven't gotten to this point yet.  
  
++UPDATED ON FEBRUARY 25, 2002++  
I edited some stuff in the first chapter, that I didn't like. I also added a couple little things. Not much, but just enough to keep the flow of the story going in places I didn't think were going as well as the rest. Thanx for reading.  
  
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FINAL FANTASY X: DEFINING MOMENTS   
by Sartori   
  
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CHAPTER 1 - THE BEGINNING   
  
The inevitable had finally come to pass. Tidus stood in the dark, cavernous atrium with only a foreboding chill from the stolid walls to keep him company. Yunalesca had left the room only moments before, along with everyone else. Her ominous words were all that she had left behind. Her apprehensive syllables lingered throughout the musty air as if they were one with its decaying antiquity. They spoke to Tidus and told him of things that he would never hope to think of again. Yuna must choose the next Sin, and solidify her own memorial in the process. One of them, her closest friends, had to join her quest for martyrdom.   
  
Even among these hallowed halls, Tidus knew what would come to pass. There was no other way to defeat Sin. It was futile. The corrupt and hideous influence Sin had caused was too great for the rest of Spira to bear. Yuna was going to follow in her father's footsteps. To bring the Calm to Spira only for a short time. That was just enough to lift the spirits of everyone, and it was her sole destiny to become Spira's temporary savior. Tidus hoped that she would make the right decision. Even though his own feelings tainted his views of Yuna's crusade.   
  
Nevertheless, her path lay before her. With the ever-watchful eye of Sin blocking her from her true passion. Maybe she could leave this task for someone else to complete. Maybe the only thing that would convince her to stray was a certain something she had never possessed or tasted before now. Maybe she had discovered something worth living for. The only thing it could possibly be evaded Tidus like no other quandary he had ever been exposed to before. The empty love and adoration he had been subjected to in Zanarkand was infected with the curse of his popularity. An all-star blitzball player was usually better suited to short flings to satisfy bouts of angst and longing. Commitment was a word he had never used much. But, he had never experienced someone like Yuna. She faced all that the world had to offer with a happy face and a rare innocence that Tidus could never have found in a city like Zanarkand. His fame was nonexistent in this place and made him feel as if true love could bloom in the wake of Sin's genocide.   
  
Tidus slowly lumbered up the steps to confront Yunalesca and to see what Yuna's choice would be. He pushed on the doors with a strength he had never seemed to possess before. The thoughts and feelings spiraling through his conscious mind were too hard to face. Focusing his strength on the simple insignificance of opening a door was all he could do to remain sane. His composure faltered when the door finally swung open on its hinges and knocked with a giant metallic thud against the outside wall.   
  
Everyone was there. Rikku, Kimahri, Auron, Lulu, Wakka, and Yunalesca were all standing around the platform under a sea of darkness. All that could be seen among the cold, dark sky were vague spots of stars that burned with an ever-increasing vigor. And yes, Yuna also stood upon this melancholy stage. He expected her life to be extinguished from the world any   
second now. It pained him to see her standing there as if nothing was wrong. Everything was wrong, couldn't she see that? His attention lingered as he studied her watchfully, as if he was to discern her thoughts by the flow of her dress in the wind and her darkened yet still elegant silhouette.   
  
Her silken hair waved in the breeze as she leaned upon her staff and looked nervously at the stones littered among the broken platform. She seemed to be leaning on her staff so hard, that Tidus began to wonder whether she was strong enough to even obtain the Final Aeon. Then his thoughts wavered to the task ahead. His depression grew as he walked over to Yuna while motioning for the rest of his loyal friends to disband and leave himself and Yuna to talk, alone.   
  
Yuna looked up into Tidus' dour face and smiled weakly. She opened her mouth to speak, but Tidus spoke first. "It's okay, I know what you're going to say."   
  
In a curious tone she murmured, "You do?"   
  
Tidus looked off into the dark skies and started to run his fingers through his hair. "You're going to say how it's your duty to defeat Sin. And how the people of Spira will never forgive you if you ran away from this."   
  
Yuna laughed softly and said, "No that's not what I would have said. Not yet anyways."   
  
Surprised, Tidus looked at her exquisite face and longingly wondered whether this was the end of their journey and their beginning, as lovers. She fidgeted with her staff, looking decidedly nervous for what she was about to say.   
  
"I was going to say that....you.....are so beautiful." She smiled as she said this and looked straight into Tidus' eyes, stars reflecting off of them from the night sky. Tidus looked back at her and began to feel as if no one else existed. He looked at his hands. His gloves gripped tightly to his tanned skin and felt as if they were just a mindless constriction that he needed to be rid of. Slowly he pulled the gloves from his hands and looked back into Yuna's waiting glance, her eyes a wonderment of shimmering jade and a hypnotic azure hue. The gloves hit the ground with a leathery thud as Tidus rid himself of their strangling proximity. He reached up to touch her face, but Yuna's hand gently caught his. She brought her hand up to her cheek to let him touch the side of her face. She closed her eyes and thought of what it would be like if she could be here, forever in this moment. Yuna already knew what she was going to ask him, even now, but it hurt to even think of saying it. Just one last encounter would be enough....until the next time.   
  
Tidus caressed her lustrous skin as a small tear fell from her eye and found its way onto her lips. Growing bolder, Tidus leaned in and let his hand slip from her face to her shoulder as he put his lips to hers. Tidus could taste the salty tear upon her moistened lips and was blissfully oblivious to her pain. It was better not to know during a time like this. He had to remember everything about this moment because an eternity should never be able to make him forget. The downy feel of her hair as it lightly touched his right cheek. His hand upon her bare shoulder and the texture of her skin. The guileless wind beating away at them. Subtle details that would forever be impressed upon Tidus' memory.   
  
Yuna played her slender fingers through the strands of his hair as their lips professed their undying love for one another. As their tender embrace grew ever stronger, it eventually had to founder, there wasn't time for love amongst the stars and a waiting company that grew more impatient by the second. They released each other from their amorous tryst. Yuna's quavering lips attempted to form the words she had so often thought of since that night in the woods of Macalania.   
  
"I love you."   
  
Tidus smiled as if he knew it all along, but was too scared to ask. Even though they had openly expressed their emotions with one another before, with a simple kiss. The words she had spoken seemed to ring in his mind with such clarity, that it forced him to ask the question he had been asking himself for the past hour.   
  
"So, what are you going to do now. Do you want to be with me or Sin?" He said this matter-of-factly which seemed to catch Yuna off guard, if only for an instant.   
  
"You know the answer to that, but I do need to defeat Sin. I know that it will only be for a very short time, but The Calm must come to Spira. Not only for the people, but for the good of Spira itself."   
  
"There's got to be another way. Honestly, can't we figure something out?" He urged her. "We could, use all of the Aeons you have. Or gather all of the summoners together and fight it. Or....or..."   
  
"It's hopeless. You have to understand. It's my fate....as a summoner." Her eyes were downcast as she said this with Tidus looking on, downtrodden and helpless.   
  
All the energy Tidus had previously contained in his body seemed to leave him with this trite realization. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I should just face it. I'm not a child anymore. But, I don't want to leave you, Yuna."   
  
"You won't have to. Because...I want you...to be my Final Aeon."   
  
Tidus looked at her with a face that charted the territories of a map of woe. Her question shocked him but was both a relief and a blessing in one fell swoop. There really was no other way to defeat Sin. And if this is the only way he can truly be with Yuna, in an afterlife among the Farplane, so be it. There's always a hope, however small and insignificant, that Sin will end its cycle of death and sadness.   
  
She watched him closely in anticipation of his response to her proposal. Finally, after what seemed like ages of hollow silence Tidus began to speak.   
  
"You know that, I will become Sin. My dad is Sin. And he was your father's guardian. So you know how this will end....don't you?   
  
"I'm not so sure of that, but we can always hope," she exclaimed with a hint of desperation in her voice. "Can't we?"   
  
Words failed him at the moment. Suddenly, a feeling he could not aptly describe washed over him. The feeling overtook him and its arrival was a frightening portent. It consumed his will and every fiber of his being. Warmth spread throughout his limbs as he remembered what he had been doing only moments before. The Kiss. Yuna's Skin. The Cool Night Breeze. His lips formed the words hastily, but adequately, "I'll do it."   
  
His words rang out in his subconscious with the strength of a religious litany. He never knew how much he would regret it. He was too intoxicated with this unexplainable feeling. His entire life felt as if it had been extinguished and brought back again. And the taint of this intoxication was enough to make him forget any regrets. His memory was wiped clean of the mutiny his body had so quickly performed and would never remember its coming. Until it was too late.   
  
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END OF CHAPTER 1   
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	2. Isn't it Wonderful?

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FINAL FANTASY X: DEFINING MOMENTS  
by Sartori  
  
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CHAPTER 2 - ISN'T IT WONDERFUL?  
  
"No Yunie, you can't." Rikku's high-pitched squeal pierced the silent air that the party had become so accustomed to. Tears flowed in abundance from Rikku, who couldn't bear the news that Yuna had brought.   
  
"We must Rikku. It must be done," Yuna said, trying her best to console her heartbroken cousin.  
  
Tidus stood behind Yuna and glanced at the entire group. Their faces were downcast and dispirited. All but Kimahri and Auron. They had come to accept the fate of a doomed summoner long ago.  
  
"Please everyone, time is very important," Yunalesca's authoritative voice dashed the mood that had been brooding about the open room for so long now. "So you have chosen, have you?"  
  
"Yes, I have," Yuna responded, looking more despondent than ever.  
  
Yuna and Tidus walked towards Yunalesca's figure, ready and waiting to accept their fate as summoner and summoned.   
  
She gazed at them appraisingly. It almost seemed as if she were judging their ability to face the task ahead. A glimmer of warmth and adoration passed through her stony facade as she remembered her former life as a summoner. Choosing her husband to be her Aeon felt like a good idea at the time, but a lifetime of regret and anguish seemed only to aggravate her aching wounds. Stuck in this limbo of deceit, where all she was allowed to do was lead others to their sorrowful fates. Should she warn them, or carry on the time-honored tradition of a follower of Yevon? "Sin must be defeated, who am I to stop them," she thought to herself, the two lovers wholly ignorant of her own dilemma.  
  
Seeming to forget any flash of nostalgic interest in this scene before her, she graciously offered to the couple a final expression. "Any last words or actions that need to be said or done?"  
  
Both Tidus and Yuna faced each other. Tidus' now gloveless hand reached to the chain around his neck. He took it off quickly. "Give me your hand," he said with a restrained urgency.  
  
Yuna opened the palm of her hand, as Tidus placed the heavy chain into her waiting grasp. The chain felt cold and lifeless in her palm. Its frigidity reminded her of how very cold her surroundings had become.  
  
"For as long as we have left...here....in Spira. I want you to have this." Tidus took hold of Yuna's hand and delicately closed her hand around the bulk of the chain. Its shape still set firmly in his mind.  
  
Yuna, at a loss for words, just stood there and smiled. Carrying on her air of happiness, to help forget the wealth of darkness that was still to come.  
  
"Ok, let's go then we've no time to waste," Yunalesca's voice urged. Indicating Tidus, Yunalesca motioned for him to stand before her barely concealed body. He obeyed and immediately noticed a curious emanation of heat pouring forth from her slender form. Its presence unnerved Tidus, but he said nothing in the hope that it would soon disappear. "I must bind you to Yuna. After that, your thoughts and actions will be indivisible. There is no turning back. Are you truly ready?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Good." Yunalesca turned away from Tidus and extended her right hand into the vacant space above her. Almost instantly, a flurry of light began to gather at the tips of each one of her fingers. Her palm started to glow an unnatural shade of green as her fingertips grew brighter and brighter. The green hue formed itself into the shape of a glyph that none of them had ever seen before. Turning back to face Tidus, she reached out and touched his forehead with her enchanted palm, her fingertips still shining with a blinding ferocity.  
  
Tidus closed his eyes as the invisible flames lapped at the shores of his thoughts. He felt pain like never before. To combat this scorching heat, he attempted to open his eyelids, however difficult the task may be. As his eyes were released from their stranglehold, Tidus was submitted to a sight he had not entirely anticipated. Instead of seeing Yunalesca, he saw the shore of a beach. It calmed him. The white sandy shore was being moistened by the tranquil afternoon waves. Its simplicity soothed his mind and made the pain of Yunalesca's transfiguration vanish completely.  
  
Seeing that Tidus was pleasantly distracted, Yunalesca continued with her ritual. The lights still glowed furiously at her fingers. One by one they traversed downward, to where Tidus' forehead and Yunalesca's palm were connected. When the connection had been completed, Yunalesca opened her other hand as wide as she possibly could. She pulled back, and without breaking her other connection, brought it down upon Tidus' chest with unbearable strength.  
  
Yuna could see Tidus' corporeal body fly across the stage with unparalleled ease, but his spiritual self had remained. The solid form of Tidus dissolved in the air as Yuna turned her attention back to Yunalesca, and her spellbinding performance. Tidus' spirit still stood in front of Yunalesca, connected to her bewitched palm. It radiated a faint blue light, and drew some amazed sighs from everyone who saw it.  
  
It took all of her strength, but Yunalesca managed to walk over to Yuna with the spirit in tow. Once she had arrived by Yuna's side she grasped Yuna's staff with her free hand. The blue spirit flowed upwards, into Yunalesca's palm, evaporating into every recess of the emerald glyph. She placed the tip of the glyph to the center of the staff and allowed it to flow from her body freely. As soon as the glyph's jade light had burned out, the staff was released, and it hit the stone floor with a thunderous crack.  
  
The weakened Yunalesca fell to the floor with a sigh of relief. Looking at the amazed party she exclaimed, "You must go, she has received him. Sin is waiting."  
  
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END OF CHAPTER 2  
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Like It? I would love comments or criticisms. More Chapters Soon. 


	3. Rebirth?

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FINAL FANTASY X: DEFINING MOMENTS  
by Sartori  
  
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CHAPTER 3 - REBIRTH?  
  
On a day like today, the Calm lands couldn't be more mesmerizing. The rolling hills and consistent plains echoed a song of tranquillity that Spira was seldom privy to. Chocobos grazed the grassy knolls in overwhelming abundance. It was almost laughable to think that Sin, would occupy this area so soon. To disturb the peace of this land would be heresy, but it would be done. All for the peace of Spira, which was the focus of Yuna's pilgrimage.  
  
She arrived in the Calm lands with her guardians as soon as the sun had risen. They had spent ages in the Zanarkand Ruins, to transform her love into the Final Aeon. Yuna's staff contained his entire essence. His thoughts invaded her own mind as she held the staff firmly with both hands. Their humanity had become indivisible, as Yunalesca had said, and they would forever remain this way, until her fight with Sin ended with victory.  
  
The mood of the group had changed for the worse. Everyone looked off into the distance with a sense of doom and hopelessness. Only a hint of their previous determination had been left upon their faces. Looking at Yuna, Auron spoke with the strength and consternation of a defeated foe.  
  
"So, this is where the story will end. I had very well hoped for a more satisfying conclusion. But, this will have to do."  
  
As if to punctuate Auron's words with a reply, the ground shook forcefully. The foundations of the earth rumbled and groaned unceasingly. It was Sin. The horizon revealed its hulking form to the spectators, who dreaded the battle ahead of them. The behemoth extended its ample limbs far enough to span the distance between the heroes, in a matter of moments.  
  
Lulu was the first to act. She threw her hand up and a barrage of lightning bolts headed towards the beast. The bolts glanced off of its thick hide. A sheen of viscous liquid immediately encircled Sin's form to protect it from further outrages from the nonplused magic user.  
  
Chaos ensued as numerous Sinspawn swarmed from every orifice that Sin had accumulated. The colonies headed for all of Yuna's guardians, leaving her to deal with Sin alone.  
  
She held her staff, her hands shaking it uncontrollably. Her proximity to the massive incarnation of Jecht disturbed her sanity. It had distracted itself with the battle that had broken out with her guardians. This gave her time to complete what she had come to perform.  
  
She took the silver chain, that Tidus had so recently given her, from around her neck. After placing a light kiss on the symbol that hung in its center, she threw it on the ground in front of her. Raising the staff into the air with one arm outstretched, she said those words for the last time.  
  
"I love you."  
  
A blast of ivory light ruptured from the wand with a vigorous burst. It hit the chain that Yuna had thrown, and expired as abruptly as it had appeared. The chain sat there, as commonplace and ordinary as before. Yuna began to walk over to it, her elegant stride breaking the monotony of the chaotic scene surrounding her. She knelt down and grasped Tidus' memento with pride. Placing it around her neck, she looked up into Sin's expecting glance. In response to its placement, the necklace grew hot with the instillation it had just received. The normality of its appearance had still remained, but it soon began its profound transformation.  
  
Yuna's eyes glazed over, as she lost all control over the flood of ideas and postulations that erupted inside of her. The chain made her into a goddess of purity and light. A metamorphosis that had easily come to pass through her own life of chastity and morality. It blinded the Sinspawn and her party with its arrival. Out of the curious white light her face was the only part of her body that was visible. She constantly looked at Sin, with an unwavering determination. Tears started to fall from her eyes. Every drop hit the ground and formed a standing pool of water. Amazingly, the tears flowed in such a profuse deluge, that the puddle began to take a substantial shape. The shape became solid and lie there, unaware of its existence. It was the unmistakable shape of a naked Tidus. The flow of tears was staunched, and Yuna's glossy expression faded, along with her lighted form. She turned her attention to the sleeping pile of flesh that had appeared before her. As soon as she recognized who it was, she knelt down to help wake him.  
  
"Wake up. Wake up," shaking him gently as she said this. The urgent tone in her voice seemed to rouse him from his enchantment instantaneously.  
  
He stood up, ignoring Yuna. His nudity seemed not to bother him in the slightest, as he turned to face Sin. He was not himself; he was an Aeon now. Thoughts of love with Yuna were expunged from memory in this form of selflessness. His only purpose was the destruction of Sin and its horde of Sinspawn. He surveyed his body hurriedly, waiting for his re-emergence to occur. Almost instantly, his flesh erupted in a violent fit. It sizzled and burned, while liquid fragments burrowed out of his skin. Pain was nonexistent in this immaculate form. Tidus looked straight ahead, while the liquid freshets came from his pores to devour him in a womb of protection. As the sac was formed, his own physiognomy was refined as well. His fingers and toes grew metallic claws, and his hair turned to the color of an ocean on a midsummer's day. The sides of his arms gave way to emerging blades, sharpened perfectly by his new physical structure. Finally, with the sac fully formed, Tidus rose off of the ground. He hovered over towards Yuna and stuck his hand through the gel-like liquid.  
  
Yuna could see Tidus' hand inclined, as if to offer her some company amid this turmoil. She took his hand, and was then pulled up, through the protective wall. They stood inside staring at one another. Tidus looking at her with no emotion whatsoever, while Yuna could not hold anything back. It was an intimacy she had never come to expect right now. He was naked, and she was fully clothed. However erotic the scene may have been to Yuna before, it was effectively spoilt by their surroundings. But, more than anything, Tidus could not love in this conformation. Yuna's heart could not make her see that, no matter how hard she tried. Love breeds ignorance, which is admirable regardless of the cost.   
  
Cold and heartless as it felt, she was still relieved to see her love, no matter how he looked. Throwing all of her cares aside with wild abandonment, she embraced him, careful of the blades on his arms. Tidus carefully caressed her face, his expression one of amusement. She spun around in his arms, and placed her head upon his chest. Words could not evoke what she was feeling now. But, as she spoke, Tidal performed his last duty as the Final Aeon.  
  
"This moment is...."  
  
She was cut short. Tidal had placed his bladed fingertip to the nape of her neck. As she realized what was going on, she struggled, but was too late. He casually flicked his forefinger across her throat. Rains of crimson gushed from the gaping wound in Yuna's neck as she fell to the floor of the protective sac. Blood gathered at the base of their liquid encasement. It mingled with the components of the sac, changing its color from a deep blue to a purplish haze.  
  
As Yuna's life was taken, a single pyrefly rose from her motionless body. It brushed up against the wall, trapped inside with Tidal. This was the source of their fates. It was hard to believe, but pyreflies were the instrumentation of Sin's demise. The ritual of summoning a Final Aeon, and the "sending" of that summoner was what had sustained this spiral of execution for so long.  
  
Tidal placed his menacing fingers around the pyrefly, and absorbed it. This was the only weapon that could destroy anything as evil as Sin. Pyrefly and Aeon, combined to become one being, indivisible. Tidal stood, marveling at the pyrefly and its departure into his own body. Blood flecked his face as it contorted into a rictus of pure satisfaction. Sin will be destroyed.  
  
  
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END OF CHAPTER 3  
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Like It? I would love comments or criticisms. More Chapters Soon. 


	4. Enough

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FINAL FANTASY X: DEFINING MOMENTS  
by Sartori  
  
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CHAPTER 4 - ENOUGH  
  
Rain began to fall across the land with renewed prodigality. It was an evilly bitter sort of irony. Yuna's death had signified this precipitation. The rain's profuse abundance continued to assail the plains of the Calm lands. It seemed to communicate the mood clearly. However trite and fortuitous the climate seemed, it was an accurate descriptor of the coming events.  
  
Battles were still being fought, despite the inclement weather. Auron's sword ripped into numerous Sinspawn, tearing them asunder with no hope for any chance of cessation. The slick rain covered his soiled blade, and aided to its swiftness and proficiency. Only a few steps away, Rikku pounded away at one beast with modest force, but her attempts were to no avail. Sensing weakness, it tore at her with a blinding fury. Wakka was at her side in an instant, knocking the wretched fiend into the Scar of the Calm lands. Now, its horrid shrieks could only be heard by whatever lay in wait within the Scar's abyss of infamy. All of Yuna's guardians were preoccupied with their own personal battles, absolutely unaware of the summoning and its consequences.   
  
The only one to witness Yuna's death was Tidal. Being inside this purple womb of defense had shielded the others' eyes from viewing this funereal abasement. His expression had remained as icy as it had been before. Tidal had assimilated the pyrefly quickly. Without an ounce of sorrow or regret, he looked down at the corpse.  
  
Yuna's body was uncomfortably arranged at the bottom Tidal's self-made encasement. Her neck formed a newly fabricated grimace that seemed to mock these ghastly events with its counterfeit cheerfulness. The flow of blood had ceased, but Yuna's beauty had not. The wrong that had been wrought upon her frail frame had done nothing to the exquisite symmetry of her face. Her beautiful eyes were fixed onto an invisible subject, dilated from her unnatural expiration; her hair fell from side to side with Tidal's hovering movements, just as it had when she had lived. And finally, Tidus' necklace still hung heavily around her chest. It was funny how beauty seemed to find Yuna, even in death.   
  
Tidal grabbed her lifeless vessel by the shoulders. With one slight movement, he tossed her through his orb of protection. Her body flew into the chasm below, disappearing into the darkness forever. The Scar had received yet another summoner for this cause of futility.  
  
Tidal looked up at Sin's massive bulk. The incarnation shifted its substantial weight from side to side, while its multifarious eyes perused its surroundings for any whisper of retaliation. In response, Tidal extended his arms out through his liquid shell and flew for Sin. Sin replied with rockets of blue fire, which Tidal gladly accepted. Their energy shook Tidal, but only caused a slight ripple to appear throughout his sphere of protection.  
  
Tidal's cold stare was fixed on his objective, Sin. Getting closer by each mounting second, the orb's crash course was set.  
  
As Tidal collided with Sin's body, floodlights burst from their point of collision. An explosive shockwave of light and energy emanated from the point and shook the whole land with its unparalleled force. Cliffs shuddered from the intensity of the waves and loosed boulders from their previous escarpments.  
  
Immediately, Yuna's remaining guardians ran for cover, forsaking their battle with the dwindling Sinspawn. Getting as far away as possible from the pulsing explosion was their only goal now.   
  
Tidus and Yuna were gone now; their quest ending as abruptly as it had begun.  
  
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End of Chapter 4  
  
Hope you liked it! It was short and sweet, but it's far from over. So don't forget to check back. Have a nice day. ^_^ 


	5. Tidus

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FINAL FANTASY X: DEFINING MOMENTS  
by Sartori  
  
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CHAPTER 5 - TIDUS  
  
"Tidus.......wake up. I don't have time for this."  
  
The recognizable voice pierced the cold darkness with a sense of urgency that Tidus could never effectively anticipate. His perception sensed nothing. Sight, touch, taste, and smell were all inexplicable taboos in this world of empty shadows. The only definite piece of any recognizable physical existence was that voice. That commanding and authoritative voice, which wanted nothing but the attention of someone who was already lost in his own makeshift reality.  
  
"I'm really disappointed in you boy. You were never my son......"  
  
The voice died off slowly. Tidus tried to think of the voice and its implications, but thought was not such an easy thing to come by. He had no body, no mind, and no feeling. Just that sense of awareness. The awareness that you don't exist, yet you do, on some actual plane of cognizance. He lived or just merely existed on some paradoxical island where nothing was truly real or unreal. The emptiness he felt was neither soothing nor the source of any great unease. It was just a pure and unadulterated banality.  
  
Surprisingly, as if a floodgate had been opened, images flashed before his consciousness. Darkness was replaced with the image (or memory perhaps) of a single girl. How lovely it all seemed. Her simple beauty and innocence penetrated Tidus. Was there really someone like that.....out there somewhere? A feeling crept into him that could only be admiration. He assimilated the feeling as if it were a new body part, growing with every moment that passed. The Innocent flashed before him again, this time with another person beside her, caressing her lustrous skin. Someone infinitely more familiar to his weary sentience. The images still made no sense, but they amused him. Each one instilled a new emotion into him making his non-existence that much more tangible. After the joyful symbols had passed, other more painful images revealed themselves. Fear, Regret, Anguish, and Sadness were all represented in the images, and with them newly birthed emotions were formed for this infant, Tidus. Rebirth was a slow process, but he took in each new emotional sentiment like delectable morsels which could never be refused. Faster and faster the images floated past him, snapshots of some actualized reality, these more distinct and relevant than the others. A Kiss. A lake. A girl's hair. A bare hand. A naked shoulder. They blurred together until they were no more.  
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Indeterminate amounts of time passed as Tidus contemplated his newfound emotions. Memories were still fleeting, but at least he had new thoughts to toss about aimlessly. He began to realize how odd and inherently awful his current situation had become. He had no true self to call his own. All he had was this consciousness, which was probably better than nothing at all.  
  
Immediately, almost in direct reply to his musings, his entire body faded into view. Gradually his limbs became tangible. He was a newborn babe again; he would have to become accustomed to these foreign extensions. He raised the gloved hand to his face and marveled at its substantiality.   
  
"This is real," he thought, "This must be what it means to be alive."  
  
However substantial his body had become, it still didn't change the fact that he inhabited a world of peerless shadows. The expanse was never-ending with its horrifying depths. He looked around, fully aware that he was now in possession of all the normal physical faculties that a person grounded in reality would ultimately maintain, but with nothing to test their worth upon.  
  
Silence was the ruler here, amongst this abyss of gloomily dark obscurities. One sound, just one, was all Tidus needed to genuinely validate his existence. Eventually, it came. Waves breaking along a weather-beaten shoreline. Birds squawking and frolicking throughout the air, oblivious to Tidus' eavesdropping.  
  
Pictures began to form to complement the sounds. The living pictures impelled Tidus to recognize this new world. It was a utopian rapture, this island, where no one was present but Tidus. The shore was a milky and sandy white, which supped at the waves gladly. Water had appeared around him, soaking him waist high in its tropical blue shallowness. Now, finally, he was an active participant. No longer a bystander, waiting for something significant to happen to him. He walked through the water, playing his hands along the rims of the waves. Their playful frivolities made Tidus think of something. Hadn't he been here before? Or perhaps seen some incarnation of this scene before him?  
  
Those flashes of remembrance amounted to nothing as he walked towards the beach to explore this new site of wonderment. Suddenly a figure appeared. It was a man with a tattoo etched upon his violently tanned chest. He beckoned Tidus to come to his side with brutal motions of his right arm.  
  
"C'mon I need to hurry up and tell you something," he gruffly spat out, "and I don't have all day."  
  
Words formed in the pit of Tidus' throat, for the first time ever he spoke, with a startling familiarity with the intricacies of speech. "Who are you," he yelled, almost by the man's side, with only a few steps more to cover.  
  
"Oh," the figure chuckled, apparently amused at this comment, "you must have hit your head or somethin'. Well, it'll soon pass."  
  
Tidus arrived by his side, dripping wet from the waist down. "Well, what do you want," he asked with the curiosity of a young child.  
  
"Nothing," the figure vanished as it spoke the word, leaving Tidus to look around with absolute confusion. Regardless of his complete mystification with this disquieting event, the final word that the stranger had spoken resonated with him.   
  
Nothing.  
  
The bare-chested stranger's simply reticent pronouncement was now part of his conscience. It disconcerted his soul because he felt like it should mean something. No matter how long or how hard he tried, he couldn't discern the puzzle that had been presented to him. He knew little of such meta-physical journeys of the soul and mind. They were enigmas to him, and he could never be asked to deal with such a complex thing as introspection. He was still a child, left alone on a small world that called out to him.  
  
Yet again, he was left alone to deal with his own devices. Bored with this depressing isolation he went off to explore the rest of this mysterious island (or was it even an island at all). Something was going to be sated, and it would be this void of curiosity he still carried with him. There had to be some clues as to who or what he was among this dream place. The tree line was not too far away from the massive head of the beach, so he made his way there.  
  
Various species of birds made themselves known amongst the trees' laden branches with a raucous of unsettling calls and shrieks. Their brilliant plumage entranced Tidus and became an added incentive to hurry towards the wall of trees and foliage. Arriving there disturbed the rainbow colored beasts; his presence scared away the birds and left him standing at the mouth of the jungle, admiring the luminous green hue that radiated from the oversized leaves of the striking foliage.  
"Hey you," a shout interrupted, "Come here, I knew I'd find you here."  
  
Tidus turned to see the girl from his visions, standing at the edge of the water. Occasionally a gentle wave would hit the side of her leg, moistening her unspoiled pearly hued skin. Her beauty intoxicated him. Forsaking his soul-searching journey into the jungle, he went over to the girl and joined her blithe reverie.  
  
"Sit…with me," she said as a welcoming smile gently crept across her face.  
  
"Who…."  
  
"Stop. You know who I am. Yuna, remember," she expressed curiously.  
  
A slight tinge of undeniable warmth passed through Tidus' body as he faintly remembered her relevance to him. They had been together at one time, with nothing but their amorous contentions to keep them on the brink of sanity. Slowly, old remembrances were instilled inside the once blithering amnesiac. Memories of a previous life began to form; visions were nothing without names to call them by. Those portraits of life he had witnessed were nothing, until someone reminded him of himself.  
  
"I remember," he said to Yuna with a glowing warmth that touched him to the core.  
  
He sat down beside Yuna, who had already knelt down on the sandy beach. He looked into her eyes and recognized their unique peculiarity. He now knew that he would never want to leave her side again.  
  
"Would you….hold my hand," she asked tentatively, growing anxious at his proximity.  
  
How could he refuse the woman he loved. Everything was right with the world now. This other reality he had entered was heaven, now that Yuna was in it with him.  
  
  
  
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End of Chapter 5  
  
I'm soooooo sorry for the long wait. I've been caught up in school, but I promise I will complete this fic. There's no way I'm going to stop. Entries may be sporadic, but always remember to check back. And criticisms are entirely welcome (actually I encourage them).  
  
Hope you liked it! I had this entire idea in mind ever since I started the fic, so don't think it was a spur of the moment thing. Don't forget to check back, and Have a nice day. ^_^ 


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